IBM, OSLC Promote Interoperability Across the Software Lifecycle

IBM Rational software offerings among the first to support Open Services Lifecycle Collaborative’s Change Management spec.

ARMONK, N.Y. - IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced four IBM Rational products that are among the first to apply the new Change Management services developed by the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) initiative. As a founding member of the OSLC, IBM is working with an open community of software vendors, integrators and corporate software delivery teams to develop specifications that make it easier for development teams to use lifecycle tools in combination and more efficiently share information between systems.

The first OSLC specification on Change Management was published this summer. It defines a common set of services and formats for interacting with change management systems. Tools that use the new Change Management specification can more easily maintain tool integrations from different vendors and better manage the information contained within their change management systems. For example, a quality management tool can better integrate with a change management system to log and track software defects.

IBM is the first industry vendor to deliver products that implement the OSLC Change Management services. The interfaces are supported by the latest versions of IBM Rational Team Concert and IBM Rational ClearQuest software. A version for Rational (formerly Telelogic) Change is also due out in September. Additionally, IBM Rational Quality Manager and IBM Business Partner Tasktop Technologies use OSLC interfaces for integrations with Rational Team Concert, Rational ClearQuest and Rational Change.

OSLC represents a new approach for software vendors and the open source community to join together to answer industry demand for greater tool flexibility across the development lifecycle. Developers from more than 20 organizations have joined the effort, which became operational in late 2008. Members are involved in workgroups focused on developing specifications for all areas of development lifecycle including requirements management, quality management, software project management, architecture management and reporting.

“Software delivery teams rely on a range of tools from different industry sources to get their jobs done,” said Martin Nally, chief technology officer, IBM Rational Software. “IBM did not hesitate to embrace the OSLC Change Management services in its Rational software development solutions because we recognize the tremendous potential of the industry coming together to agree on ways to integrate and share data between tools.”

“OSLC is breaking down barriers and easing the pain and cost associated with ALM tool integration. Its open community and common integration approach is very appealing for a company like Tasktop that supports integrations with nearly three dozen change and task management systems,” said Mik Kersten, CEO, Tasktop and leader of the Eclipse Mylyn Project. “OSLC helped us accomplish the integrations our customers demand for products such as IBM Rational ClearQuest, and we will continue to benefit from integrations with future OSLC-based services.”